If you’re confused about what you need then let me explain:

If you want to power some appliances that normally run off the 230V mains supply then you can get away with a simple inverter that plugs into your cigaretter lighter socket. NOTE: These products are only suitable for electronic type loads due to their square wave (or modified sine wave!) waveform. You cannot use these for power tools, pumps or similar type loads. Choose the inverter that meets your load requirements - we have a 375W Inverter which can plug straight into your lighter jack socket and a 700W Inverter that is a bit higher powered and designed for connection to a 12V system in your RV or boat.

If you need a  more robust or permanent solution then choose an inverter that gives you a sine wave output so you can power practically any load without problems. Just check on the loading that you need. We’ve got up to 2000W Inverters from a 12Vdc system and shortly we’ll be adding larger capacities. Now these inverters do more than just provide you with a high quality power waveform from your battery – they can also charge your battery when you are connected to an AC Power Source. Here’s how it works. You’ve got AC power present, this powers all equipment connected to your inverter and also charges your battery. The charge current is quite large so you can have a lot of Ampere Hours connected. When the AC power is disconnected, the inverter will switch over from AC mains to Inverter mode, and it will do this in about one hundredth of a second, so fast you probably wont notice the switchover. The inverter will then draw its power from the battery and provide an AC power output until the battery is depleted. When you reconnect to AC power, the inverter will switch back and start to recharge the batteries again.

If you’ve a car or a boat, you may be nervous (quite rightly) about draining the battery to such an extent that you can’t start your engine. In this case, keep everything separate by obtaining some high capacity Leisure Batteries. Our range is designed for a high number of charge/discharge cycles and comes with a 5 year guarantee. Connect the inverter/charger to your leisure battery and then you can run AC power from the battery when needed and keep the battery fully charged when connected to an AC power source. Our leisure batteries also have the added benefit that they are fully rated to deliver engine starting currents as well.

At present we have 110Ah and 220Ah batteries available. (Note the deal we have on 220Ah batteries – save £50 PER BATTERY on each battery over the one purchased.) If you want to expand the capacity of the battery you can connect more than one battery in parallel but note it is not a good idea to mix batteries of different capacities as this causes charging problems. To connect in parallel, all the red Positive (+) terminals are connected together and all the black Negative (-) terminals are connected together. You then add up the capacities to give you your new AH rating. For example connecting 3x110Ah in parallel will give you 110+110+110 = 330Ah, and 2x220Ah will give you 440Ah.

The more Ah capacity you have the longer you can run on battery for the same loading. Time’s running out for this entry, but I’ll update with a full runtime matrix shortly. In the meantime, stay powered on your hols!

This is bad enough for many people, especially when used for work and you’ve just lost all the data on that report you’d been writing. But did you know that mains fluctuations can cause damage to your hard drive?

A common effect is to hear a repetitious clicking noise coming from your hard drive – the click of death (like the blue screen of death but more fatal if there’s such an analogy). This renders your hard disk inoperable. What does this mean?

Well, your PC cannot function. You cannot access any data that you have on it without specialist services, and you need to replace your Hard Disk Drive (HDD), it cannot be repaired.

The cost of a new hard drive is relatively cheap these days. Probably around the £30 for a no-frills device. But then you have to fit it, and reload all your software. Assuming you’ve got all the CDs/DVD’s, and your access codes for downloaded software, plus you backed up all your important memories from your digital camera (you did didn’t you?), then this should be a breeze. Only taking a full day or so. It’s no laughing matter loading a PC from scratch. You get used to all your settings, software, and although sometimes its good to have a purge you’ll be surprised how long this process can take.

If you needed to recover data from your hard drive, well that’s a different story. You will be charged anywhere upwards of several hundred pounds to have data recovered – if it can be recovered.

To avoid these issues you need to invest in an Uninterruptible Power Supply. These will allow you to work through brief power cuts and shut your computer down (after saving your work), if the outage is longer than a few minutes. Some people provide a degree of power protection for their PC’s by using surge suppressors. Note that these will NOT protect damage to your HDD because of power fluctuations. A surge strip can do nothing to protect against mains voltage variations and power cuts.

How much is an Uninterruptible Power Supply? It depends upon the level of protection you require and the amount of runtime you need, but a basic standard system can be bought for under £30 (plus VAT). Power Inspired’s VIX series Uninterruptible Power Supply fits the bill for a home office / small office PC and is such a low cost it’s a no-brainer to me.

Many people may have a company laptop that they use, and that’s fine. After all, the laptop has a built in battery and is immune to power cuts (and many other power disturbances for that matter), however many others choose to use the traditional desk PC. It’s usually more powerful, is better ergonomically, has a better screen etc. etc., but how many are protected with an Uninterruptible Power Supply?

The cost for a system to protect a single PC, is crazily low here at UPSMart. In fact, it’s so low, it is crazy not to buy one. The VIX2060 will provide adequate battery backup and power protection for the home PC user and comes with shutdown software so you will never lose that valuable data.

VIX Series Uninterruptible Power Supplies

If you’re looking to start working from home, this is an interesting article: Smart steps to get your homebased business off the ground

Now SNMP adapters have enabled the UPS to be connected to your network and can be monitored and even controlled by anybody who has access to that network. Here’s where a lot of the text has been about. Not about the ability to be able to monitor the UPS, but rather the security issue it poses.

A network managers worst nightmare

Many systems come with default security settings which apparently many people overlook when setting up the system. What happens is that any hacker with a bit of UPS knowledge gets into your network and not only does he try to plant a few viruses hear and there or extract some data, decides to switch everything off just for the hell of it. A nightmare scenario for any network manager.

I’ve even heard of some clients who are so scared of the possibility that they refuse any communications with the UPS at all, instead relying on the automatic starting of the gen sets in case of mains failure and visible and audible UPS alarms. This seems a bit unnecessary as monitoring the UPS by a web browser is a useful tool and can be secure provided the correct protocols are followed. Just remember that once SNMP is enabled the UPS is part of the network and your network security protocols should cover for this.

Why do you need a power quality survey? It may be that you have poor power and so a power quality survey will show you this. So, you’re experiencing problems, you suspect power quality is the reason, a chap arrives with some gadgets and then tells you that you have a problem. OK, so far insomuch as you’ve confirmed that power is, or just may be, the cause of your problems.

What if the survey shows nothing wrong with your power? What then? Do you go searching for other causes? Or perhaps the power quality problems you have didn’t manifest themselves during the survey?

I bet I can predict without turning up at anybody’s premises whether or not they have good clean power. Here’s some rules. The further you are away from the substation, the worse your power quality will be. The more equipment there is on the same network, the worse your power quality will be. If you’re in a rural location, supplied by overhead cables your power quality is probably terrible. This is simply to do with impedance and current. Of course, conversely you can get good clean power if you’re close to the substation with minimal loading on the network. But what about during a thunder storm? Or during utility grid switching? Or during a fault?

The point is, a survey may reveal problems with your power. Whether or not these power quality issues have anything to do with the problems you experience is another question. However, there are also a multitude of power disturbances that may not be detected at a survey but can cause devastation to your systems. So, if any of your electrical/electronic systems are of value to your business, it’s wise to protect them from any eventuality in any case. Protect them with an online double conversion Uninterruptible Power Supply and you’re done.

Simples.

Recently we had a substantial order for the KR3000 for use for a medical application in a project in West Africa.

The KR series online double conversion technology makes it suitable for protecting equipment against wide voltage fluctuations, noise and transients, and of course blackouts that occur frequently in this part of the world.

And of course, this high level of protection is available at the best possible prices here at UPSMart, and at a fraction of traditional costs.

The Tier III data centre was conceived when computer systems were introduced that had dual power supplies. The basis of the Tier III centre is that there is one power path with redundancy, and an alternate power path:

Tier III Data Center Power Flow

Note that essential cooling is now added to the UPS output, whereas with Tier I and II it was expected that the site could cope with short downtime of cooling during which time the generators would power up and restart the system. In Tier III this is not allowed and cooling is continuous. This needs to be borne in mind when selecting the type and size of UPS. It is for this reason that you will often find rotary UPS systems (with their ability to handle mechanical loads better than static systems) used for such applications, although this is by no means a requirement.

The computer systems are dual powered (commonly referred to as A & B inputs). If a computer system is utilised without dual inputs it is expected that a local Static Transfer Switch (STS) is utilised.

In the diagram above we will assume that the primary power path is A, and the secondary power path is B. The Static Transfer Switch (STS) also has primary and secondary inputs, and the primary input is also taken from Path A. The computers are therefore supplied by two power inputs, all of which is provided by the UPS systems. Should the primary power fail anywhere along Path A, then the Static Transfer Switch will revert to its secondary input and continue to supply power along Path B to the load.

NOTE: Static Transfer Switches are capable of switching within μsecs between their A & B inputs provided the two sources are synchronised. If they are not then there will be a switching delay. This is particularly important when you consider the issue of selectivity, i.e. the ability of the source to clear a fault. In order to achieve this selectivity, UPS are synchoronised with their bypass input. Should a fault occur they can switch to bypass instantaneously (quickly anyway) which then will allow a greater fault current allowing the fault to be cleared quickly (ie pop a fuse or trip a breaker) without causing disruption to other equipment on parallel circuits. This means that the primary and secondary sources should be synchronised. Make sure this can be done! Another factor of having unsynchronised inputs is for the potential of having 400V (not 230V) AC within the computer room cabinet.

As you can see, a Tier III is inherently more robust as it will allow failure along the entire path without power being lost. This is what classifies a Tier III system – it is basically a Tier II system with an alternate power path, derived from a seperate source. A Tier III centre has an availability of 99.982% which equates to 1.6 hours of downtime per year.

So how does this help the average computer room user? Well, Tier III is probably way over the top for an SME computer room. I have known small financial companies that require the fault tolerance of the Tier III infrastructure, however Tier III is more strategic and therefore the site is designed from the beginning with Tier III in mind. It is difficult to post fit a Tier III system without severe disruption to the existing business. However, if you required just a little more protection against unplanned outages, it may not be too difficult to install a secondary power path and an STS to feed your computers. Or another alternative may be to look at a halfway house for Tier IV…….

Tier II Data Centre Power Path

Each component must be capable of operating if the other component fails. This is typically achieved with n+1 redundancy. What this means is that if ‘n’ eg 2, modules are required to support the load then install ‘n+1′, i.e. 3. There is a lot of debate as to what determines true redundancy. For example, some manufacturers have seperate UPS modules, controlled by a single controller. If the controller fails then the system fails, so this is not true redundancy, although they may argue that the controller is designed with redundancy built in.

Some UPS modules don’t have an internal static bypass and instead rely upon a wrap around static bypass. The argument here is that one large wrap around is more robust than several smaller ones, as smaller systems may blow up one by one due to a race condition in the event of a fault. My belief is that the latter is unlikely as static switching can occur in μseconds, probably about a thousand times quicker than the time needed to damage the single static switch. In any case, the static switch is usually rated many times higher than the nominal load current to accommodate fault currents. However, the wrap around is now a single point of failure in the system – although if it fails, this will only cause a problem if the system needs to bypass, so is this a problem?. The debate will continue to rage on.

Historically, UPS were configured in what was known as a “hot standby” configuration to achieve redundancy. In this instance two UPS are fed from the utility, but the output of the standby UPS is fed to the bypass input of the primary UPS. The primary UPS provides power and if it fails (and bypasses), the standby unit will then provide UPS power to the load via the bypass of the primary. Works in principle, and can be used with mixed manufacturers and ratings of different UPS systems, however, the primary UPS output is a single point of failure. In addition, should the primary UPS fail, the secondary UPS will instantaneously be expected to deliver from 0 to 100% load immediately. Shouldn’t be a problem, but sometimes it is!

The modern method of achieving redundancy is to share the load equally amongst the UPS modules (this is how all our Kehua Parallel Systems operate). The UPS talk to each other through redundant communications ports and no one UPS is master over the others. If any UPS should fail, the UPS is isolated from the others automatically.

Enough about redundancy, the Tier II centre is more robust than the Tier I centre however still has one power path and therfore there are times during faults or planned maintenance that the computers have to be powered down. As a result a Tier II centre has availability of 99.741% equating to 22.7 hours of downtime per year. Not much better than Tier I on the face of it (28.8 hours), however Tier II is more robust against unplanned outages.

So how does this impact the normal computer room? As said under Tier I then it depends upon the financial impact of downtime to your business. For SME’s that rely on computer systems, but will all go to the pub if the power is off, then there is perhaps no need to keep the computers running for hours on end, simply shut down gracefully and that’s that. Where you don’t want to have to shut down the system to perform maintenance on the UPS, and don’t want to leave the system vulnerable to power cuts or surges when using an external bypass switch, then you will need redundancy. Like all things in life, it’s a choice based upon your needs and wants.

It’s worth stating that Tier Standards are only a guide as to the robustness of a site against outages, there is no standard or law dictating that this is the way it should be. Use the information as a guide to what is best for your business.

• A dedicated space for IT systems
• A UPS to filter power spikes, sags and protect against momentary outages
• Dedicated Cooling Equipment
• A Backup Generator to protect against prolonged outages

There is a single power path delivering power to the load and redundancy is not required. As a result any component or distribution path failure will impact the computer systems.

Standby Power Flow Schematic for a Tier I Data Center

During normal operation the UPS is providing clean power and protecting the load. A short term power outage will see the UPS continue to provide power to the computers but the cooling system will be shut down. During extended outages the generators will activate allowing continuing operation of the computers and the cooling system will restart. Any planned work will more than likely require the computer systems to be shut down.

Tier I data Centres have an availability of 99.671%, which equates to over 28.8 hours downtime per year (Planned and Unplanned).

For a typical computer room, a Tier 1 set up is more than likely adequate, with the addition perhaps of a redundant UPS module (see Tier II). The use of a generator is optional and dependent upon the impact of downtime to the business. The IT equipment can be configured to shut down gracefully in the event of a extended power failure, and the fact that lost data has been avoided is probably acceptable for many businesses.

The Tier system has been developed by The Uptime Institute as an objective basis for comparing the capabilites of one particular design topology over another or to compare groups of sites.

We will be showing that (at least as far as power is concerned) how we can have move from Tier to Tier level depending upon the requirements of the data center, and how best to utilise these classifications into everday computer rooms. After all, not every business will need the stability of a modern data center.

Watch this space.